To add to your observations I would like to add experiences with
benevolent autocracies.
I have seen general mangers who were commissioned to change the culture to
A Deming like system sucked into the old ways. They became benevolent
autocrats with all the information systems built to report to the general
manager and all the decisions coming got their office . Just like before.
I believe they learned to be what they were supposed to replace because it
is easier than driving change. And it feels good to be the decision maker.
Gene
At 10:26 PM 6/29/97 -0400, you wrote:
>In LO 14102 John Constantine reminded us that there are individual people
>in each of the types of competitors that occur in corporate ecologies -
>not just corporate names. He is certainly right, but I have also observed
>in both consulting and research for a book on business growth strategies
>that company-wide inclinations toward one role or another in a competitive
>ecology run very deep.
>
>Most of the people in positions of power in companies got there because of
>their abilities to conform to the companies particular inclination
>(something I call growth path in my book: Go For Growth). Many, but not
>all, of the employees that contribute the most, and are most satisfied
>working in a particular company, are those in sync with the inclination.
>
>I'm not saying this is good or bad, just common.
>
>(If interested in some of the business school research in this area, check
>out the work of Miles & Snow, Danny Miller, Lawrence & Lorsch and Alfred
>Chandler)
>
>In contrast to what John Constantine noted, I've been surprised at how
>frequently new individuals at the controls, to use his words, behave
>exactly the same as those who came before. Again, this is not always the
>case (a company in crisis with a CEO from the outside like Fisher at Kodak
>and Gerstner at IBM is more likely to see a shift in
>competitive/ecological inclination). But executive changes in companies
>like Marriott, Pepsi, Apple, AT&T, GM, and P&G have not resulted in
>significant shifts in their companies stance in their ecologies, even
>though the new executives made many other changes.
>
>Toyota's new management, as well as Sony's, are leading significant change
>efforts, the net direction of each, though, is to bring the companies back
>toward their longtime competitive orientations (Toyota as an aggressive
>market share acquirer, Sony as a rule breaking pioneer).
>
>I am far from having any lock on all wisdom regarding how corporations
>compete. But I've found it's useful to see the impact of a person in a
>corporate system as something that's usually (but, again, not always) a
>part of that system, not something
>freestanding-while-also-having-a-potent-impact on it. Getting to a
>position of power in an organization can be a nice place to be, but there
>has usually been a price to pay for it.
>
>Bob Tomasko
Eugene Taurman
interLinx
ilx@execpc.com
http://www.execpc.com/~ilx
People will ultimately perform in accord with the way they are measured
and rewarded.
Control is preconditioning
William L. Ferrara
Penn State University
1975
--Eugene Taurman <ilx@execpc.com>
Learning-org -- An Internet Dialog on Learning Organizations For info: <rkarash@karash.com> -or- <http://world.std.com/~lo/>